Books, Books, Books

[filkertom]

While travelling, I read my first book by Tanya Huff (andpuff), Sing The Four Quarters. It will not be my last book by her. I enjoyed it immensely, and I've got Fifth Quarter in the same volume and the first two Blood Ties books waiting for me at home.

Next to catch up on will be Elizabeth Bear (matociquala, whose online writings I've admired for a long time), Sarah Zettel (sazettel, a lovely and wonderful lady and excellent writer whose last few books I sadly have not got to yet), Jim C. Hines (jimhines), and John Scalzi (scalzi, better read at his blog).

Also on the book front, Tor Books is readying a site launch, and if you sign up for their mailing list before the full site goes live they'll give you some free e-books. This week's is Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson; next week's is Old Man's War by John Scalzi.

And, of course, there's the Baen Books Free Library.

Any books, e-books, and/or authors to recommend?

Comments

[ladystarblade.livejournal.com]

If anyone's a fan of mysteries/Sherlock Holmes, check out Laurie R. King's Mary Russell stories, starting with "The Beekeeper's Apprentice." Holmes purists may squawk, but I found them well written, engaging, and much, much better than expected. My copies are getting a bit dogeared.

[twfarlan.livejournal.com]

Can't recommend C.E. Murphy (aka mizkit) highly enough. Covers a couple of genres, centering around "urban fantasy" with the Walker Papers series. Good author, cool person.

[galicola.livejournal.com]

The Time Travaler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Wonderful, exciting, touching, excellent.
Highly recomended.

[sazettel.livejournal.com]

First of all, thanks for the kind words. I'm totally geeked to be back in the SF game too, with a new book coming out summer of 09 (yes that was a blatant plug. Forgive me?).

I highly, HIGHLY recommend UGLIES, PRETTIES, SPECIALS & EXTRAS by Scott Westerfeld. Also CATHY'S BOOK by Sean Stewart.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Plug away, m'dear -- that was the point. And every kind word about you is well deserved.

And, bwaha! huskiebear is reading the Westerfield books right now, and is going to lend the first one to me tonight.

[sazettel.livejournal.com]

I think you will like them. Among other things they are proof positive that "kids these days" will in fact read SF, it's just got to be good SF, with good characters, that talks about the future as we see it from today, not 60 years ago.

Not, like, that I have opinions about this or anything.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Have you read the Temeraire series yet, by Naomi Novik? It's generally described as Patrick O'Brian meets Anne McCaffrey -- the Napoleonic wars fought with air support. (And if you haven't read O'Brian's Aubrey-Maturin books, they make a nice side trip.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Got the first three, on the strength of the first 70 pages of Book One. I hope to get to those by the end of the month. If I remember correctly, she actually got her start in Harry Potter fanfic....

[sdelmonte]

I just finished Spin by Robert Charles Wilson. It's a very intense SF novel that I don't want to tell takes an unlikely premise and builds an amazing (if occasionally soap operatic) story of three people caught in world and life changing events. It's really good, but I had to stop reading for two weeks as it just got too strongly written. But I do recommend it.

[uhrwerkmensch.livejournal.com]

I've been pleasantly surprised by the first two books of Karl Schroeder's Virga series: if the first book was hardish SF, steampunk Horatio Hornblower vs. sky pirates, the second book is more akin to Gormenghast on a decaying cylindrical habitat. But they both contribute equally to the evolving mythology of the inhabitants of a fullerite bubble filled with air and artificial suns, hiding from post-Singularity humanity.

[fmh.livejournal.com]

"And, of course, there's the Baen Books Free Library."

You are my god for leading me to this.

[james-the-evil1.livejournal.com]

Another TOR author, Cherie Priest cmpriest

[alicetheowl.livejournal.com]

Apparently, Neil Gaiman will be giving away an e-book in celebration of his blog's seventh birthday. He's accepting votes for which of his books will be given away for free.

[faxpaladin.livejournal.com]

Interesting age categories on the Tor site...

1-11
12-17
18-30
30+

Suffice to say I fall into the "30+" category...

[valarltd.livejournal.com]

For freebies, Circle Dark Publishing is hosting a give-away (http://cdpsabrina.bravejournal.com/entry/26497) in honor of their first birthday.

(I always have a monthly giveaway (http://www.angelsparrow.com/contest.html))


If you haven't read Nocturnal Urges, A More Perfect Union and Abaddon by Elizabeth Donald (http://elizabethdonald.com/) aka reannon, you're missing out.

Part police procedural, part vampire romance, part political tract and all amazing.

Her short story collection, Setting Suns can hold its own against anyone, up to and including King, Ellison and Bradbury. It beats LKH's Strange Candy by a mile.


SM Stirling's Change trilogy was very good.
And Bryan Smith's The Freakshow is excellent if you have a strong stomach. He's a really sweet guy and you'd never suspect him of writing something like this.

And of course Yard Dog Press (http://www.yarddogpress.com/)'s Bubba series.

[sarekofvulcan.livejournal.com]

Don't buy Empire of Ivory until Victory of Eagles comes out. There's a fairly nasty cliffhanger to deal with...

For something a bit different, how about the Harbinger trilogy, by Diane Duane? The first book is Starrise at Corrivale. One of the later books has this exchange between two of the characters:

Delde Sota let out another long breath and said, "Statement: remiss of me to leave client unsupervised during period of unpredictable change. Addendum: if toadstools do occur, would not like to lose chance to publish."

Gabriel gave her the driest look he could. "Ambulance chaser."

Delde Sota gave him that look right back, with interest. "Notification," she said, "skilled enough practitioner has no need to chase. Knows where to stand so that vehicle stops right in front of her."

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

Alternity! (Ah, what a good system. Too bad it went belly-up when TSR died.)

[allandaros.livejournal.com]

I've been on a Steven Erikson kick recently, and stayed up till 5 AM reading Reaper's Gale, the latest available book (in Canada; the US is one behind).

I posted my spoiler-free review here (http://allandaros.livejournal.com/105748.html), if you're interested. This series is probably the best thing to hit fantasy since the Chronicles of Amber.

[mneme]

Neil Gaiman (but then, if you haven't decided whether or not you like Gaiman, I recommend you move to a more garrilous abode than "under a rock"). They'll be giving away a Gaiman novel online -- but we don't know which one yet (there's a poll on his site).

I'm awfully fond of Holly Black's YA novels -- _Tithe_, _Valiant_, and _Ironside_. Dark fantasy a great mix of fantasy-as-fantasy and fantasy-as-metaphor.

Last year's Mythopoeic Children's winner, _Corbenic_, by Catherine Fisher, is lovely. Also, a modern ...not retelling, exactly, but close...of the Parsival grail story.

Finally, I find it hard to recommend a bunch of fantasy authors without mentioning McKillip -- since nearly everything she writes is wonderful.

[technocracygirl.livejournal.com]

Heh. A friend loaned me the Westerfeld books not two days ago and I'm chewing my way through the first one right now.

Very good, so far.

[opalcorn.livejournal.com]

I can *highly* recommend another book by Tanya Huff, if you can find it; 'Gate of Darkness, Circle of Light.' It was her 3rd novel, I think? It is absolutely charming. It's one of my favorites, I've read it a number of times. :)

[rabidfangurl.livejournal.com]

David Weber! His books are available on the Baen free library and he has one published by Tor that is unbelievably awesome. It is the story of a transsexual android trying to save a world where the religion has locked the technology in the 18th century from highly advanced aliens. There is slashiness! And battles on the high seas! And baseball, but that's in most Weber books.

[lizreay.livejournal.com]

I totally read that as "Karl Schroder's Viagra series."

[lizreay.livejournal.com]

For those who want to catch up on their classics, DailyLit.com is fantastic. They'll email you bite-sized chunks of any of hundreds of out-of-copyright novels, short-story collections and the like, one a day (or if you click on the "send me more now" link, as many chunks as you like). Pretty nifty. If you prefer audio books, you can go to Librivox.org for free audio books... and the chance to bolster your voice-work resume by reading books to tape yourself.

[molakwae.livejournal.com]

I'm partial to his "War God" series, which he says he can't dedicate as much time in. FYI, If you find "The List," put your favorite character up. He has a list of characters his wife won't let him kill off. And she's let it be known she takes bribes.

[catnip13.livejournal.com]

For a quick, easy read in the "classic sword and sorcery" genre, I recommend the Song of the Lioness quartet by Tamora Pierce - tammypierce . Her books are aimed at a teenaged audience, actually targeted at girls, no less, but the Alanna books have stood up to countless rereads in the last 20 years. (and all of the males I have convinced to read these have enjoyed them, too) I don't like the rest of her stuff as much as that first series, but it is also worth a read.

[molakwae.livejournal.com]

They're good. I preferred "Protector of the Small," personally.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

Steven Brust's Draegara books. The Vlad Taltos series is basically high fantasy as seen from the alleys of the capital city by a snarky assassin, and the Khavvren Romances are a five-book pastiche on the works of Alexandre Dumas. (He's written other stuff, too, but I haven't read it yet.)

[ororo.livejournal.com]

I really enjoy Tanya Huff. As you're working your way through her stuff, make sure you hit the Valor books and the Keeper books, both series are loads of fun.

I've been reading Anne Bishop lately. The Black Jewels trilogy is superb.

[markbernstein.livejournal.com]

Spin also won the Hugo. I put it second on my ballot - I liked it a whole lot, but I liked Accelerando, by Charles Stross, more.

[ifics.livejournal.com]

The Baen Free Library is a very dangerous place. (The first one is free kid. 8-) ) I recently finished The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman. Currently in fiction I am reading the Lensman books. Started with Galactic Patrol, currently reading Gray Lensman. I had never gotten around the reading them, and decided it was time to do so! Great books so far.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Indeed, although incredibly bizarre. In a perfect world, Andreas Katsulas would've lived to play Saetan.

[huskiebear.livejournal.com]

I am indeed loving the Uglies series. there's a lot of good characterization, decent flow and some really great ideas and concepts to make you go "Hmm". Unfortunately, I only brought the first two on the trip with me, so now I have to wait a week to get back to it. How bogus!

[bosswriter.livejournal.com]

The Seven Suns saga by Kevin J Anderson, Metal Swarm is just out (volume 6 of 7 total).

Anything by Joe Haldeman is great.

If you want Harry Potter for adults, try the Dresden Files by Jim Butcher.

Ian Rankin is a mystery writer I just discovered, WOW he writes great stuff.

If you're interested I have reviews of the last several books I have read here on LJ or on my website.

Looking froward to seeing you at Capricon!

[ladymer.livejournal.com]

Elizabeth Moon. The Deed of Paksenarrion features a paladin who is neither dumb nor obnoxious. And the final book of the Vatta War series comes out soon.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

I adore The Deed of Paksennarion. Gritty, wonderful adventure.

[kengr]

Yeah. Same here.

[kengr]

If you don't mind a fair dose of sex/kink in some of them, Elf Sternberg (elfs) has a huge* series of connected stories that's been being published online for over 20 years. Check out the Journal Entries at http://www.pendorwright.com/

Another online freeby that's huge and has a large following is the Tuck Saga by Ellen Hayes. http://www.barkingduck.net/ehayes/main.htm

It follows the misadventures of a teen geek and his friends. Mid you you, there are some aspects of it that may turn off some folks. And it has a few sections that are real downers (Ellen is *not* afraid to have bad things happen to characters)

To give you an idea of just *how* good it is, on a visit to some friends I read it aloud them (Lin is blind). In a bit over two days I read something over a million words (the 100+ chapters are 2.4 meg zipped).

Yep, I read pretty much continuously with only short breaks for food sleep and bathroom. My voice was shot by the end, but it was worth it. :-)

BTW, don't let the start fool you. It looks like a typical story of one particular genre. It's not.

[filkferengi]

I have that trilogy, but haven't read it yet. Thanks for the heads-up.